Along with the development of communication infrastructures and progress of information communication technologies, various services using the Internet are provided.
For example, a site (to be referred to as a photo site hereinafter) that provides a service for receiving and storing images sensed by the user using a digital camera or scanned using a scanner via the Internet, and a service for allowing the user to browse stored user's images anytime he or she wants via the Internet is known.
Also, a site (to be referred to as a print site hereinafter) that prints out a transferred user's image and provides it as a commodity is known.
Such photo sites include a site that uniquely provides both an image storage service and image printout service, and also a site that provides only an image storage service, transfers an image to be printed out to a print site, and makes the print site provide a service.
In the photo site that provides a print service in collaboration with the print site, image data is transferred to the print site in response to a request from the print site. The image data is transferred based on a protocol such as http, ftp, or the like, which can be used on the Internet. Hence, upon transferring image data from the photo site in response to a request from the print site, acquisition of image data is entrusted to the print site.
As a result, since the print site can also acquire image data which is not related to order information, image data may leak. Also, the print site may repetitively acquire image data that has already been acquired from the photo site.
When a print service is provided by collaboration of the photo site and print site, after the photo site passes image data required for a print process to the print site, the setups of detailed print information, and a series of processes such as an estimation process, printout process, settlement service, and the like are handed to the print site.
Therefore, when the user sends a cancel request of a print order to the print site after the photo site has passed image data to the print site, the print site must receive and store image data which is not printed out in practice, thus wasting resources. On the other hand, although the user who placed the print order sends a printout cancel request, since image data is saved in the print site, the saved image data may be illicitly used.